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Thought for the Month

Dear Readers

I have recently returned from a holiday in Cornwall and would have liked to send each one of you a post card, as that was not possible I am doing so now through our magazine.

My usual post card messages are very brief - 'having a good time, wish you were here.' But presuming that our valiant editor would object to this I'll share with you some of my holiday activities. They consisted of a fine hotel next to the beach, walks along the shore or on parts of the Cornish coastal path, some site seeing, rides on the delightful local St Ives Bay railway line and time for reading. One of the books I read was 'Esther' and it is one of the books of the Old Testament part of the bible. I don't think that I've read it before or even taken much notice of it but it was quite intriguing.

Apparently it was written between 486 and 465 B C, is set in the then country of Persia and is the story of a beautiful Jewish girl who becomes queen and saves fellow Jews from slaughter. In their book 'Know your bible' Paul Kent and George Knight suggest that this book of Esther tells us all that 'when we find ourselves in bad situations', it may be for the same reason as Esther did - to accomplish something good.

This doesn't seem very comforting to me and I prefer to think that whenever we find ourselves in bad situations, as we do because we are part of a broken world - when these times come Jesus is with us and suffering our pain and hurt too.

"Lord, take my hand and hold me in the dark when I can't see the way ahead. And if at times I stumble, as I know I will, tighten your grip on me and don't let go, thank you."

Mary Haywood, Lay Minister